Europäischer Monat der Fotografie Berlin - Artists (in alphabetic order)

Remains of Power Doug Hall

Photography 1992

Galerie der Kunststiftung Poll

Doug Hall: Plenarsaal der Volkskammer, Palast der Republik, 1. Etage
1992 © Doug Hall
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At a distance of 20 years, the gallery of the Poll Art Foundation is showing pictures of the showcase buildings of East Germany just at the moment of its implosion. In 1992 Doug Hall came to Berlin, attracted by a history that had suddenly become contemporary and the promise of rapid changes. The aesthetics of socialist realism that he discovered here proved a perfect fit for his style of perception, and he was able to resort to a central Renaissance perspective to emphasise the omnipotence of order, monotony and colour in the motifs he selected. Measuring 156 by 123 centimetres and in portrait format, these prints follow closely in the tradition of American photography of recent decades. They make a lofty impression on the viewer and the mathematical formula on which they are based enhances their sense of presence. Today they seem set in stone, as witnesses to the powerful pretensions and functional severity of the seventies, against the background of the homey atmosphere (as Hall described it) of the postwar years.